Pan-Germanism

Pan-Germanism (German: Pangermanismus or Alldeutsche Bewegung) is a pan-nationalist political idea that seeks to unify all ethnic Germans, German-speaking people, broader groups of Germanic descent, or any combination of the three, into a single nation-state often called Greater Germany.

It was highly influential in 19th-century German politics amid the unification of Germany. Nonetheless, the German Empire was proclaimed as a nation-state in 1871 without Germanophone Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein (Kleindeutsche Lösung/Lesser Germany). From 1891, many Pan-Germanist thinkers of the Pan-German League espoused ethnocentrism and racism. It was also influential in early 20th-century Austria-Hungary and Germany.

These ideas ultimately gave rise to Nazi Germany's foreign policy of Heim ins Reich, which was among the causes of World War II pursued under Adolf Hitler from 1938.

In addition to the concept, The Greater Germanic Reich (German: Großgermanisches Reich), fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation (German: Großgermanisches Reich der Deutschen Nation), was an attempt by the Nazis to unify all Germanic peoples into one Reich.

After World War II, backlash against Pan-Germanism and other related ideologies limited it to a few nationalist groups, mostly on the political right in Germany and Austria.